It is sophisticated to condemn your country,
And every country runs with a thousand wrongs,
Even as you root for the cricket team and sing your country’s songs.
But you are guilty of sophistication, of wanting sophistication so bad,
That hating your country becomes how you think,
And for excitement, you make your mother sad.
This is especially true in the U.S., where the unkind
Matters of identity have topped the college mind.
It takes a pretty penny to go to college,
Just to feed resentment of old manners and knowledge.
It takes a pretty penny to reject your parent’s all—
So a man turning into a woman can use the woman’s stall.
The brutal facts of history, unfolding with political zeal,
Galvanized by the unfeeling spy, will ruin how you feel.
The propaganda of history, which murders with its stealth,
Troubles the local habits by which you know yourself.
What condemns your country, when it comes from someone you trust,
Invades your developing mind, which pleads for it like lust.
But history, which is so beyond you, and so vast—
It belongs to all the world, and belongs to all the past—
Makes your lustful certainty of your country’s wrong
The misremembered words of an unmelodic song.
Iran is British Petroleum and British Petroleum is Iran,
And the Muslim will call you Satan if the British secretly can.
America! If you don’t understand the seeds of this fight,
You’ll be crushed. Learn. Hold on tight.